It was strange to see a display of expensive decorated chocolates in one window and in the next an equally lavish display of deadly-looking weapons—cutlasses, maces, nail-studded cudgels, and an array of seraph blades in different sizes.

A long space went by, and now each sway of the great belt lasted nigh a minute; so that, after a great while, I ceased to distinguish it as a visible movement; and the streaming fire ran in a steady river of dull flame, across the deadly-looking sky.

Slowly, automatically matching his pace to the beat of the extended trumpet flourish, he walked between the two lines of men, his eyes flicking from their black-and-red dress uniforms to their expressionless faces to the deadly-looking flash rifles held rigidly in front of them.